Peter Raabe
Peter Raabe ( born November 27, 1872 in Frankfurt ( Oder), † April 12, 1945 in Weimar ) was a German conductor, musicologist and Nazi cultural policy.
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Life
The conductor
Raabe, son of a painter and a piano teacher was, after studying at the Berlin Musikhochschule with Woldemar Bargiel Kapellmeister in Königsberg, Zwickau, Wuppertal- Elberfeld, Amsterdam and Munich before 1907 took over the management of the Weimar court orchestra. In this position he acquired until the end of his term in 1920 numerous achievements as a conductor. From 1920 to 1934 Raabe General Music Director of the Aachen Symphony Orchestra, from 1924 to 1934 and Honorary Professor of the local Rheinisch- Westfälische Technische Hochschule. He was able to lift the Aachen musical life at a high level.
Raabe's repertoire included not only classical and romantic works too much time in contemporary music. He sat down equally for modern as for conservative composers, with him, however, the latter were much closer. Particularly intense, he promoted among his contemporaries Hugo Kaun and Richard Wetz.
His son Felix Raabe, with whom he worked closely, was also from 1946 to 1953 music director in Aachen.
Musicological work
Peter Raabe was also active in the field of music research. His main occupation was the work of Franz Liszt, which he systematically examined as curator of the Weimar Liszt Museum since 1910. In 1916 he was phil at the Friedrich -Schiller- University Jena with a dissertation The genesis of the first orchestral works of Franz Liszt Dr.. doctorate. In 1931 a two-volume monograph on Liszt's life and work, which also contains the first comprehensive Liszt Opus and Raabe represents musicological main work.
Cultural policy in National Socialism
Raabe was a German national Conservative and welcomed the Nazi music policy. He was against the " Negro music " and the modern music of Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. There are also anti-Semitic remarks from him, as is evident in the following statement from 1940:
Raabe had long argued before 1933 for a new music policy and also want to introduce music chamber. Since 1934 he was a member of the Management Committee and the Presidential Council of the Reich Music Chamber, the leader of the Council of the Reich Association of mixed choirs in Germany, Präsidialbeirat the fellowship of the German artist eV and trustee of the donation " artist thanks " of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of Goebbels Foundation for the cultural sector. In 1935, he received the chair of the Reich Music Chamber, after Richard Strauss in 1935 resigned as president. Raabe led the RMK to 1945. Upon application by May 21, 1937 Raabe was retroactively on May 1, undertaken in 1937 in the NSDAP ( party number 3.93404 million ).
As president of the Reich Music Chamber Raabe ensured that representatives of modern music and especially the musicians were " non-Aryan " does not even recorded or released either in the RMK. This meant an existence -threatening occupational ban for affected musicians, because membership in the RMK was a prerequisite for a job as an artist. In total, more than 3000 personally signed by Raabe prohibitions are known, as well as the one that had been imposed on April 15, 1937 against Carl Stenzel (whose wife was Jewish ):
Raabe was the most important representative of the Nazi music policy. Significantly was his use of Nazi Party days. So he conducted at the meeting of the Reich Culture Congress 1935 ( the Congress of freedom ) in the presence of Hitler and all Nazi superiors Beethoven Egmontouvertüre to initiate the speeches of Rosenberg and Hitler. Hitler then gave a speech about arts policy in which he identified the arts as the herald of the Sublime and Beautiful and winner of the natural and healthy. Then followed a settlement with the culture of democratic criminals time as Dadaists, Cubists and the representatives of the New Objectivity. But Hitler also rushed against the capitalist through and through contaminated and acting accordingly Judaism, which was never in the possession of an individual style. Raabe conducted after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
From June 5 to June 7, 1937 the establishment of a Bruckner bust in the Walhalla was used as a reason for holding a Bruckner Festival. This was celebrated as an act of state. Raabe revealed on June 6, wrapped in a swastika flag bust of the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner and Hitler laid a laurel wreath. It played the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In the fixed program the next day a Bruckner medal to Goebbels, Raabe and the Munich Philharmonic was awarded. Raabe gave the keynote address. Sense of propaganda event was after Okrassa strengthening the cultural facade of the Nazi state. Raabe became very frequent speaker and announced the outlines of Nazi music policy.
On the occasion of the Reich Music Days 1938 in Dusseldorf Raabe refused to participate in this event and offered his resignation on May 8 because he thought Hans Severus Ziegler, the organizer of the exhibition accompanying Degenerate Music, for an incompetent "lay ". At Paul Raabe's point Graener gave the opening speech at the Empire Music Festival. Similarly, Raabe refused to speak at the opening of the exhibition Degenerate Music in Weimar, which was presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibition " Degenerate Art " the speech. Both remained unnoticed by the public, as the newspapers of the Third Reich did not report it.
In an article in the journal The music from the March 1941 under the title What is the Reichsmusikkammer he justified once the Nazi cultural policy, which is narrated by Fred K. Prieberg as follows: "So clear was previously no representation of the Reich Music Chamber as an instrument of political control and discipline. "
In his last years, Raabe moved frequently back to Weimar. He was buried in 1945 in the historical cemetery.
In the Soviet Occupation Zone Raabe's writings the music in the Third Reich (1935 ) and culture will in German musical life (1936 ) were placed on the list of proscribed literature.
Writings
- The genesis of the first orchestral works of Liszt, 1916
- Franz Liszt, 2 volumes, 1931
- The music in the Third Reich. Culture Political speeches and essays, 1936
- German master. Speeches by Peter Raabe, 1937
- Ways to Weber, 1942
- Ways to Liszt, 1943
- Numerous smaller essays
Discount
- Letters from P. Raabe are in stock at the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in Leipzig State Archives.